The first time I saw you was in the Khyber pass. You came with your technology, elite fighters fueled by revenge, and the hubris to believe you could disprove history.
This was a war that you didn’t have the stomach to fight. But I’m glad you tried.
We bled you the same way we bled the Soviets in our Holy Land. We bled you the same way the Vietnamese bled you in their home land. We did it patiently and deliberately.
Patience. Something Westerners never learn.
Our history is millennial. We don’t yearn for an early victory when the Infidel ravages our Holy Land. Our victory is celebrated decades from now. We’ve endured, then ravaged every standing military that crossed our borders. Why? How? We’re patient.
In 30 days, we’ll be stronger, richer, and have control over precious natural resources that you need for your pathetic life dictated by comfort. We will have women, riches, land, guns, and ownership of one of the greatest chapters in military history.
You lose.
If you want to try again, we welcome the challenge. You will fail regardless of how much money you burn in our deserts. For pity, here is free advice that may contribute to your future success; should you ever decide to invade again.
You recruit your warriors and supporters from a drug addicted, distracted, disillusioned population that’s obsessed with comfort and entertainment. A population obsessed with altering their mundane reality. Alcohol, marijuana, pills, and our new favorite -- Tide Pods. Every time your doctors prescribe opiate painkillers, you line our coffers with gold. Your population’s thirst for our pristine heroin has never been more lucrative for our warrior tribes. We will keep feeding you poison for as long as you keep your hands out.
If your population wasn’t so spineless, undisciplined, and self-loathing, then you might be able to compile a raiding party with enough tenacity to outthink ours.
Our fighters are born into war. Raised in it. It’s a way of life that evades your “first world” nations. They live a life of such immense misery and pain that they’re willing to fight barefoot in the snow for the opportunity to martyr themselves. They yearn for the opportunity to die. When they do have the blessed opportunity to sacrifice themselves, they sit above Mohammed at the right hand of God. Blessed in Allah for eternity
What honors do your fighters receive? Their empty sacrifice is remembered in the form of a “three day weekend.” The majority of your population uses this sacred time to get drunk and grow more fat as a way to celebrate their fallen warriors. Sadly, we pay tribute to their death more honorably.
The colored pieces of cloth you pin on their chests are similar to the jewelry worn by our women. What good are accolades and vanity if you don’t have the stomach to endure a fight? We don’t offer the burden of healthcare to our fighters as they often want to die for Allah. Your fighters fight to live. Their inability to reconcile the inevitable outcome of our patience leads them to kill themselves. Your medications, counselors and non-profits will never undo the pain and suffering you’ve forced them to endure. It will never remove the pain we’ve caused your broken nation. You are your own worst enemy.
We will give your fighters credit. Some are creative, tenacious, and fierce. They outgun us in every way possible. But again, we simply wait them out. Allah is patient. You cycle them through our Holy Lands every 3 to 12 months for their combat rotations. After their tour is complete, they return to the comfort of their warm beds and endless entertainment. If you left them here, in our Holy Land, with no way out but to win, then you might of have had a chance of success. The longer you poisoned our Holy Land with your presence, your “rules of engagement” only strengthened our position. There is only one rule in war - that is to win.
Your commanders made you fight with your hands tied behind your back. Your rules also confused our fighters too. “We’re clearly the enemy; why are they letting us go?” Thank you for your compassion as it allowed our fighters to kill more Infidels. We began to feel as if your commanders were on our side. We’re thankful your most vicious dogs were never allowed off their leash.
Your showcase Generals make us laugh. You spend millions of dollars flying them around our country, inventing new ways to win while ignoring the guidance of our most capable foes. Your Generals make decisions to minimize risk to their fragile reputation with the ultimate goal of securing a lucrative retirement--jobs with suppliers that fuel your losing force. A self-serving circle that’s built on the backs of your youngest and most naive fighters.
Your retired Generals “earn” tens of thousands of dollars talking to your political, industrial, and financial leaders about “teams, winning, and discipline.” It’s a mockery of the war they refused to fight. It’s a mockery of the Infidel warriors who died in our lands. We urge you to continue following their vacuous personalities so we can further watch your once great nation collapse.
Your statesman and elected officials are spineless, narcissistic, and more cowardly than your Generals. They crave power over you above all else. They come to our country, hide behind blast walls, and only heed the word of the indigenous leader they put in power. I believe your soldiers call this a “self licking ice cream cone.”
They’ve burned billions of dollars in a wasted effort to bring clean water, electricity, business, education, agriculture, and exports to a region that didn’t ask for it. You should have saved yourself the effort and simply given the money directly to us. Don’t worry; your diplomatic friends gave us plenty of your American tax dollars. If you want to give it another shot with your “soft power,” send those with real experience, not fancy degrees and silver tongues.
Over the next few months, we will make the world understand that you failed worse than any fighting force that’s ever invaded our lands. Today we celebrate victory.
As you evacuate your embassy, our fighters will be standing in the shade. Our RPG marksmen will be patient. We thank you for the parting gifts. You’ll find surface-to-air missiles staged in the back of Toyota pickup trucks that you purchased for us.
We saw what Extortion 17 did to your nation and the morale of your fighting force. Do your citizens even remember that victory? We’ll be repeating and improving upon our victory while your citizens and sympathizers evacuate in disgrace. Every one of your foes around the world will know exactly how to break you.
You are welcome to fly your empty drones, target our cell phones, and send your spies. But they, too, will ultimately fail. We’ll use their failures to show the world that you’re not all-powerful. You’re a false front--an empty shell. You lie, cheat, steal, and are easily defeated because you lack the spine to fight. This is your history now. We’re grateful Allah gave us the opportunity to show the world how to defeat the Infidels.
We look forward to seeing you again across the battlefield.
Praise be to God,
The Taliban
***Authors’ Note***
If you’ve read this far. Thank you. I’ve spent the past week trying to find a way to communicate this to the American people in a manner that would cause anger, rage, action, and understanding. Writing in the voice of a Taliban felt right.
If this made you angry, cry, or contemplative--then our goal is achieved. Our hope is that it inspires you to take action with your elected officials. They’ve been repeating the same failing playbook since World War II with your sons, daughters, and tax dollars. If you want this to keep happening, do nothing. If you don’t, then do something. If we all do a little, together we do a lot.
About the Authors:
Matthew Griffin is a 2001 United States Military Academy Graduate, Army Ranger, Combat Veteran with the 75th Ranger Regiment (3x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq), CEO of Combat Flip Flops, author, and 2019 Henry Crown Fellow with the Aspen Global Leadership Institute.
Scott Chapman is a 2000 Murray State University Graduate, Army Ranger Fire Team Leader from Alpha Company 2/75th Rangers (‘01 - ‘05), OGA Blackwater Alumni, entrepreneur, and author. Combat Veteran ( 21x Afghanistan, 1x Iraq)
Comments
💯 Matt. The Senior leaders and politicians have been the root cause of the issues subsequent to WWII and they were likely causal leading into WWII.
Furthermore this drug and lazy culture is an issue. I’m not calling for a return to a war on drugs; I’m calling for an acknowledgment drugs and laziness are social issues requiring social accountability in the same way we look to other so-called social issues.
That said I’m not sure why a squadron or two of ‘buffs’ couldn’t lay down some cover by off loading in a few key places – probably well known – in order to effect a safer ex-fil.
Thank you for writing this and for being so committed to other humans throughout your life in so many ways.
Don’t stop being a better human.
I’m angry, enraged and ready to fight against allowing the pathetic elected officials we have remain in their offices. I’m also pissed that our Generals allowed the Civilian Leadership to influence this result. I’ll do my part help create the change we so drastically need.
Thanks for writing this essay!
Same crap happened in Vietnam. When Trump was elected I sent him a few emails telling him to go to the Pentagon and fire every general there because they were politicians, not warriors and then fire every obama executive appointee. I’m sure he never saw the emails. If we ever enter a shooting war again (we will) we need the resolve to win it fast and not tell the enemy what we are going to do. Politicians are Americas worst enemies.
Kipling got it :
https://allpoetry.com/Arithmetic-on-the-Frontier
IMMI
So sad because this is True.
With one Hugh exception:
Allah is not The True God.
They will all go to Hell.
In Truth there is Victory.
Jesus Christ is Truth & Lord
Bluntly, the US has not won a war since Grenada and that’s nothing to be proud of. The US no longer fights to win, but fights only to achieve diplomacy. To paraphrase Clausewitz, war IS diplomacy. ISIS understands that. The US does not. You learned nothing from Vietnam, a country which fought China for a hundred years and fought the US with the same tenacity and readiness to die. Perhaps the US does not comprehend this willingness to die because, since the revolutionary war and the war with Japan, it has not fought for anything it truly believed in.
The PRC is watching and laughing. Russia is watching and smirking. Taiwan and your allies are watching. What do you think they’re doing? What are they to expect from you when the shit really hits the fan – a few jet flybys and then going home? India has shown more gumption than the US as young American men die for lack of the political will to win.
The US must relearn that when the politicians declare war, it’s conduct is turned over to the military, not the public relations teams. You must respect your cause as fervently as does the Taliban or any other enemy. Failing to do so will only continue to result in never-ending struggle without victory and the accompanying tragic waste of resources and manpower.
Soldiers’ Ground
This piece of earth so green and lush is hallowed ground to me.
Though you may see abundant life, that isn’t what I see.
I see politicians’ lies and Generals’ poor command,
And loss and tears and sacrifice, that sanctified this land.
Though trivial geography to those whose feet it bore,
Its brave defenders challenged us for who would want it more.
Tooth for tooth, eye for eye and crimson blood for blood,
Every anguished inch we bought, exchanging flesh for mud.
And when the battle ended and our prize was made secure,
When we beheld what cost us dear, our victory seemed unsure.
Smoking, scorched and barren earth, devoid of any life,
Scarlet-cloaked with broken men, the residues of strife
Now grass thrives on the sweat of those who cursed and fought and bled,
Flowers root in sanguine soil; perfume decaying dead.
Your white and towering monuments that glisten in the sun,
Remind me of the bones they hide. For you, the job is done.
You stand and make pronouncement at the valour that was shown,
You call this land a symbol and you claim it as your own,
But political diplomacy and Generals’ great reward,
Were purchased with the struggles of those men who took the sword.
You dare to stand among us now, pretending at our loss,
To know the true and deeper meaning of a soldier’s cross.
This ground is ours, both friend and foe. We bought it with our all.
While you stood last and cheered us on, ignoring duty’s call.
Be gone from here pretenders for you do not have the right,
To share with those who sacrificed. Those who fought the fight
Your gains are built on their remains. Your glory we hold cheap.
Your presence here an insult to all those who sleep the sleep.
Your posing and your flowery speeches, eloquently trite;
Charades of ceremony, are but mockery in our sight,
The victor and the vanquished bled to hold this land so dear
Be gone, for this is soldiers’ ground. You have no business here.
Sounded to me very much what Colonel Kurtz said in Apocalypse Now!!??!!
I think you’re a bit overboard in your denigration of the rank and file — certainly some of them are pampered losers, but, as you go on to say, it’s the leadership who are the pampered losers and grifters. As one of my kids (ex-Navy) put it, when the new Chairman of the Chief Joints called for a stand-down in order to seek out the imaginary racist, sexist, white supremacist “enemy within”, how many flag officers stood up and said, “Hell no — screw off and let us get back to work”? Silence, basically. We see a lot more flabby policemen than we do American military (besides Del Toro), but on the whole they want to do their jobs and serve the people’s interests. It’s the politicians at the top (including those in uniform) who are, in their own way, drug-addled self-obsessed — the drug being power and all the right cocktail parties.
I wonder if there will be an anti taliban resistance but i wont hold my breath after seeing mostly men running and clinging to planes without a thought for their families!
Very sobering piece. A perspective from guys he put their lives on the line to try and help out over there. God Bless you, Griff and Scott. Will be sending it around as far and wide as I can!
I’m enraged… They need to untie the hands of every single war fighter and let them loose over there. Drop the stupid ROE and repercussions and let them do work. Good Lord, there are human beings over there suffering and before anyone comments about the suffering here, we can fix both at the same time.
If you fight a war, you come to conquer or you stay home. That is what we have forgotten. We haven’t fought that way since WWII, which was the last time the war ended at a defined moment with an unconditional surrender.
You forgot the mic drop. Boom. Bravo sir, you have evoked some tears and it cuts pretty close to the bone but you nailed it. 👏…👏…👏…
We need stop worrying about collateral damage. We don’t start these wars but we sure as should be in it to win it. Meet force with force and fuck Johnny Civilians feelings.
This is a very powerful message. !!!!
It’s been longer than 75 years. Way longer. The time is now to stop washington from telling us what to do. We need to clean the swamp. Vote and vote right. Stop voting like your parents did. Both career democrats and republicans need to go. We don’t need radicals either. We need American Patriots to take us out of this shit and bring our democracy back to speed.
A good piece. At the very least it should be posted on Medium as well, perhaps reaching a broader audience. Two comments. Our military is one of the best the world has produced. But it is merely a “sword”. It can cut, it can parry, it can stab and kill. But the morality, skill, and effectiveness of its application, falls to the countries body politic. And there, we have failed repeatedly since the 1940’s.
There is no surprise with the Talibans return to power. We might be a bit “wowed” at the speed of the takeover, but even that shouldn’t be to shocking. The Taliban has always had a clear vision, strategy, for what they wanted. They also have a better understanding of the Afghan people. I don’t believe the US ever had either.
Truth
Spot on. Great powers lose small wars because the value of the object diminishes over time to the occupier. “We have the watch, they have the time”
Well written. Thank you for your service and sharing your thoughts in this manner.
Great article. As a 30 yr Army light infantry soldier and former marine I have never doubted the ability or resolve of majority of our individual military members. In 1969 I spent 13 months in the jungle with no base camp. We were in the fight but always knowing We only had to survive the year. Our leadership teaches us to like cushy base camps. A policy that failed the French and America. Our military and political leaders are not bright or courageous enough to develop a new method of war fighting or training. Let’s define the mission, set a goal, and fight like the enemy. Winning Hearts and minds can never be the first priority. Soldiers are not nation builders they are warriors so stop using them for that. I bet the Chinese military are not concerned with CRT and have no fear of " the greatest military on earth." General Braxton Bragg had no Awols. If a soldier deserted he faced a firing squad made up of family members, or people from his community. Curl but effective and we can be effective without the cruelty. We don’t need to think outside the box, we need to burn the box and remove the politicians in uniform and get back to soldiering. O well, it’s not all bad news. I guess we can claim victory in Granada and Panama.
Contemplating the contempt for infidels and women in this writing by a Taliban. Fascism in the name of religion is not new to the Western world and to Women. Taliban cease!
Is this a legitimate thing? Taliban isn’t a language! Pashto Is.
Why would a scholar who translate this call it Taliban? I’m really doubting this source!
We should go back and leave not one stone upon another. Read your Bible if you’re confused.
Seeing Afghanistan fall so far so fast has broken my heart. My life changed forever friends that never came home just to give it away. Reading this speaks volumes thank you for writing it
Seeing Afghanistan fall so far so fast has broken my heart. My life changed forever friends that never came home just to give it away. Reading this speaks volumes thank you for writing it
Hopeless failure America
The mission failed because it was the wrong mission, poorly executed, with no clear exit strategy. 20+ years of spilled blood, spent treasure and failed American leadership.
Thank you for sharing the truth as hard as it is to hear. Our country has been all about me instead of all about us. Politicians go in optimistic and end up selfish pos’s not caring about anything or anyone but themselves. We Do have an opioid crisis. We Do have a homelessness crisis, a healthcare crisis, an education crisis, a current pandemic, etc…….. As a veteran, I am proud and yet I am embarrassed. As a father, I am scared what my daughter will inherit. Thank you for this reality check.
My hope is the path to a better outcome will be found through open and honest communication.
Be well, stay frosty.
Thank you for sharing the truth as hard as it is to hear. Our country has been all about me instead of all about us. Politicians go in optimistic and end up selfish pos’s not caring about anything or anyone but themselves. We Do have an opioid crisis. We Do have a homelessness crisis, a healthcare crisis, an education crisis, a current pandemic, etc…….. As a veteran, I am proud and yet I am embarrassed. As a father, I am scared what my daughter will inherit. Thank you for this reality check.
My hope is the path to a better outcome will be found through open and honest communication.
Be well, stay frosty.
I’m just wondering how Scott racked up 21 deployments to AFG in 5 years (with another year in IRQ?). Doesn’t add up.
So much for winning the hearts and minds. Should’ve just taken hearts one bullet at a time. Smdh. Breaks my heart to watch what is happening after what many of us have been through or heard the stories of others.
Wars must be fought by soldiers not politicians.
Wars must be fought by soldiers not politicians.
With respect to the authors, they are late to the party. Am I the only one who is unsurprised, undismayed, and mostly unconcerned? I’ve understood this for at least a decade, and that it was futile the whole time, but nobody was ready for that conversation, because they wouldn’t have wanted to believe it (and clearly still don’t). Now, they want to wring their hands and pretend that the reality they’ve spent denying for more than 20 years shouldn’t exist.
Does anyone recall Gen. Powell’s advice to Pres. G.W. Bush (43)? “Don’t go to War unless you mean it.” That includes the terrible finality of killing everything and everyone you’re at war with. War, historically, has meant the genocide of the losing side, as peoples vie for land, resources, and power. It is only in the last 150 years or so, that I’d argue, that we’ve invented this “nobler” way of perpetuating human conflict.
You think that Sun Tzu, or the Romans, didn’t understand this concept? They were professionals and realists. We sneer down at them from our ivory towers and call them barbaric. China would not have been unified under the 1st Han Dynasty, nor would there have been a Pax Romana.
“Do you want to fight them again in 15 years? Do you want your children to have to fight theirs in 20? Put the entire village to the sword.” -Sun Tzu
All we’ve done is bequeath a more deadly, and more determined enemy to our children.
The most appropriate emotion here, for the non-myopic in my opinion, is disgust. All we’ve done is perpetuate a cycle that WILL repeat itself in a generation, or God forbid, less – and we’ve wasted invaluable lives, time, and resources to do so. Shame on us for our cowardice and naivete.
20 years. To tell you the truth, I thought it would feel as if it was a lot longer ago. But in so many ways, it still feels… well, I can remember all of it anyway.
I really do applaud your piece. Or, rather, I do applaud that your still trying. One thing I don’t remember is when exactly I gave up.
To the comments in the piece, I’ll say this; our biggest problem is that we’re imperialists. It’s why they hate us after all. Only, it’s also a post imperialist world. That’s the main issue. It’s not like we can actually colonize anywhere.
They deserved to be lose power. The training camps and the terror networks deserved to to be destroyed. We needed to find a way it could never happen again. But the second a large scale force of boots on the ground landed, we never had an endgame. If we couldn’t take over their land and rule them; why did we assume they would adopt a new way and rule themselves.
So now, we can’t stay forever and we can’t keep reengaging to no end; but they won’t fight to keep what we are trying to give them. So we lose. We lose so much of what we put into it. I’m sorry for everyone who was lost. I’m sorry for what a company like yours has lost. Like I said, I applaud that your still trying. Most of all, I pray for all those who will lose so much more, still.
It seems like I have so much more to say, but I’m not even sure any of makes much sense. I certainly don’t feel as I’m the right one to say it. I don’t want to do nothing, but it’s our society that I feel is broken. But I stay a part it and I control what I can control. I work on myself, my family, I teach my children to be better humans. I try to be the best human I can be right now. That seems to be all I can do.
Missing from the analysis is whether we can win this fight with Islamist supremacists given the jihadis will murder plunder rape and conquer as they have since 642AD. The Polish Christian King defeated the Islamists at the gates of Vienna in 1783 on September 12th, the 11th being the high water mark of the Ottoman Empire. If we send solders into harms-way we must have a strategy of victory. Peter Huessy
Wow. This is something everyone should read.
The Taliban taught us a very valuable lessons as well, though. They taught all of us that our real enemies were never in Afghanistan (or Iraq for that matter).
I was in when the last chopper left Vietnam. It is incomprehensible that we have allowed stupidity, greed and corruption at the levels they have attained. They have come back to bite us in the rear. Two words – term limits. Another two, three – purge alphabet Agencies. I watched an SF GW1 brother die a horrible death needing new lungs. What just happened is irresponsible leadership supporting criminal activities by US agents. This is why he died? Airborne and SF 1971-1979.
Well written! Sorry it came to this. I only pray when the dust settles the folks you guys have helped and the missions success that Combat Flipflops had finds some way to continue on. With the Taliban track record in any aspect it does not look promising though.
People will ask “How did this happen?” Be outraged and indigent. Then they’ll go back to their lives, 24 hour news cycle, celebrities and identity politics, pointing fingers at their neighbors, all the while voting the same criminal into political office that started this “endless war.” Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi are the two people placed in power this year, that voted for and directly benefited from these wars. Republicans too. We as a people need to fire politicians each election cycle when Bills or votes are made that do not benefit the American people. No career politician should exist and none of them should feel that “job” is safe.
Thank you for having the intestinal fortitude to write this. For those who live by the Creed. #RLTW
Wow!! Powerful piece!!! Our elected officials are spineless and in reality could give a damn about the American people, they only care as long as the votes come in
Not sure how I landed here – reddit maybe? – have never been in the military, but do pay attention to history. And to me, this brings to mind a couple of things:
1. This is the essence of bringing a knife to a gunfight, so to speak. We’re talking about people who have no compunction about beheading people, FFS. And yes, we play by our “rules” that are laughable to the Taliban. The U.S. has zero sense of history – we think buildings that are 100 years old are ANCIENT and historic; of course we don’t understand tribal wars that have existed for centuries, or that mindset. Our belief in our own exceptionalism and that everyone wants to live as we do is just absurd.
2. The increasingly cynical part of me thinks this was all intentional by the higher-ups. A lot of people made a LOT of money on this. Halliburton et al made out like bandits. And seeing just how much all our politicians are in bed with corporations, well, it all seems intractable. We need to take money entirely out of politics, e.g. no lobbyists or donations, to change anything. Everyone else, all the soldiers and journalists and translators and other boots on the ground, they were just cannon fodder.
After all, why are we in some of these countries in the first place, yet we completely ignore Russia taking over a large part of Ukraine and continuing to try to take over eastern Ukraine? Hello, Budapest Memorandum! And I live in Oregon now, a state that’s on fire. The supposedly/formerly cool and rainy part of the country, on fire. I told a friend just today that instead of spending trillions on the military, we should spend that money on researching retardants that’ll work, or sending in aircraft that can nip these fires in the bud when they start. Instead we get wars that never end, billions spent on machinery that’s never used, a huge military industrial complex that just gets bigger and bigger. This is a failed country.
Yes they are patient people ! 10 years or more the plans on 9-11 where activated ! And then that day came ! Sent there people here to learn to fly ! Not take off or land fly ! Red flag right there ! Then enter airport and walk through security check points with paid off TSA agents that did metal detector but did not detect box cutters ! All bullshit ! Now we have communist in politics that tell us what to do but they dont follow what they preach ! To all the warriors that fought and died ty so very much for your service to keeping America Free! But the Asswholes that are in office are corrupt and we need to stand together to get them out of office ! Im pissed ! Wake up its only going to get worse ! Government control really kiss my ASS!
If only those in power to make history had bothered to learn from it. Our arrogance will be our ultimate demise.
Having been alive for 70 years, and having male (and some female) immediate family involved in combat operations in WW2, Korea, VietNam and Iraq/Afghanistan, all I can say is this saddens me beyond measure.
Not the brilliantly written piece, but the whole Megillah.
Thank you for writing this. I try To remind myself and my men that it wasn’t for nothing. We may have been sent to kill but we went to save, even if only to save each other. It is time to take action, and I pray This inspires many to do so.
Grateful Warrior